Gator Country’s podcast brings you the latest episode where the gang breaks down the Florida Gators football game against Vanderbilt on Saturday afternoon where the Gators clinched the SEC Eastern Division Championship.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre break down what happened to the Florida offense on Saturday and what they could’ve done differently to score points against Vanderbilt.

Andrew and Nick also look at the defense and how the Florida Gators football team is rallying around that defense, plus they look ahead to the South Carolina game this weekend in Columbia, South Carolina.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew: What’s up, Gator Country? This is your man, Andrew Spivey, talking as the Florida Gators are SEC Eastern Division Champions. With my man, Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, wasn’t pretty, but at the end of the day the Gators are holding the trophy for the Eastern Division, and everything is good in Gainesville.

Nick: Yeah. Before the year nobody would have thought this. Before Saturday everyone would have thought it would have looked a lot prettier. Kind of incredible. Jim McElwain is just the third coach in SEC history to take his team to the SEC championship game in his first year. He joins Gus Malzahn and Les Miles. That’s pretty incredible, given what this team has looked like the past two years. Pretty remarkable to say that they’re SEC East Champions. I know the SEC East is down or whatever, but this is something that you can’t take away from them. It’s, to me, remarkable the coaching job that the entire staff has done.

Andrew: It’s great to see that the game plan was there. I mean, you and I both said it was going to be a tough game. This was a good Vanderbilt defense. This Vanderbilt defense has one of the better defensive lines in the country, not just the SEC, and overall they kind of played around with Florida not having their starting line together. That was a big thing. Then Treon didn’t have a good game overall. The key is turnovers. If Florida doesn’t have four turnovers in the game than this is very easily 28-7, 35-7, could very well have been a lot higher scoring game had it not been four turnovers, three within the 30 yard line of Vanderbilt.

Nick: Yeah. Really no excuse for it. There’s no excuse for the fumbles, especially when you get down into the red area. When you get down in the red zone you can’t do stuff like that. I think Demarcus Robinson was actually, on his fumble, was actually holding onto the ball probably the best he had all game. He’s the kind of guy that likes to just palm the football, and he’ll hold it out there. Treon Harris, when he runs sometimes he’ll kind of do the same thing and let the ball get a little too low, instead of tucking it in. You better believe that will be worked on this week. It’s just tough. Those turnovers are definitely going to be shown to the team until they want to rip their eyes out. They’re going to be shown over and over and over, because Florida was really shooting themselves in the foot. Four turnovers on the day, the interception actually as a good turnover. Someone told me, he should have thrown that ball away. I said, the interception probably picked him up about 14 yards.

Andrew: When it’s 4th down, you don’t throw that ball away. You just don’t. Then Cece fumbled. I looked at that again. It wasn’t a fumble. He was down on a play, but take away any chance for it to be called a fumble and just hang onto the ball through the play.

Nick: Let’s talk about that real quick. That was a great play call.

Andrew: It was a great play.

Nick: That fake field goal, so you hike, and you get Austin Hardin to run out, and Johnny Townsend fakes that.

Andrew: That was Neil MacInnes.

Nick: Sorry. Neil Macinnies. Neil MacInnes runs out, and you get that fake, kind of looks like the play that LSU hit Florida with, but then you’ve got Cece Jefferson coming across. So now you fake that throw to the dentist, and you get the pitch inside to Cece. I mean, the play worked, other than the fumble, but great play call. Very interesting design. Unfortunate that you used it in that spot, and now you probably can’t use it again this year, but I liked that play call a lot.

Andrew: I’ve seen a lot of people say, why’d they use it there? It’s all about setting things up there. Florida had Georgia was jumping the snap count on them on their field goals and was leafing. Now that makes teams respect that, so teams now won’t jump as quick. Also now on a fake they’re going to be more inside, and now you have that potential for the swing pass to a Hardin or MacInnes or whoever it is. It’s all about game planning for the next game. Everybody said on Twitter they should have saved that for Florida State. Sure, but that’s not the only fake in their bag of tricks. It’s there, and it sets up other things.

I like that a lot, but to kind of go back to Treon’s fumble. I could see he was trying to stretch for the 1st down it looked like, but you have to have that ball in the left hand. You’re always taught as a ball carrier to always carry the ball on the arm closest to the sideline. He needs to switch that ball there, so that way if it is bumped out it goes out of bounds. Then the same thing with D Rob. D Rob’s ball carrying and running after the catch for him is just he looks like an alien. He will go 9,000 yards to get out of bounds instead of going 5 yards up the field and taking a hit. It was very clear in the Vandy game he wanted no part of contact.

Nick: What do you mean the Vandy game? It’s been clear for three years. Listen, he’s a skill position player. He doesn’t like getting hit. You kind of take the good with the bad.

Andrew: You have to admit that was worse in the Vandy game.

Nick: No. That’s what he’s done for three years. I’ve been saying it for three years. Every week somebody will tweet at me, I see what you’re talking about about D Rob. I’m like, how are you just seeing it now?

Andrew: It’s been obvious forever, but yesterday, Saturday in the Vandy game, there was one play he literally went backwards 5 yards just so he could have a clear path out of bounds. He just needs to have a sign up that says, won’t gain yards. Just let me go down. That’s what he needs to carry. Let him make the catch and then go down. I am definitely not sure what’s going on with him, but the story of the game was definitely the defense. 175 yards is all they gave up. 71 of those came on one play to Ralph Webb where Jordan Sheritt just decided he wasn’t playing ball. The ref decided he wanted to block Keanu Neal, and Webb had reservations for six. If you take that away it’s really 101, 102 yards of total offense for Vandy.

Nick: 101 yards on 61 plays, minus the one long Webb run.

Andrew: So Florida just dominated that game. This is a guy that won’t get as much credit for it, but yesterday game ball Bryan Cox played a damn good football game. He only had 9 tackles in the game and led the team, but I guarantee you he was in on 20 plays or better in the game. 9 tackles, 8 solo, with a sack and a 1.5 tackles for a loss in the game. There were several plays he was in on the play and just making plays happen. Bryan Cox is playing some good football.

Nick: I mean, Florida as a whole, 5 sacks, 11 tackles for a loss, 5 quarterback hurries. When you look at Vanderbilt’s runs versus pass, so they threw the ball 14 times. A lot of that came after Florida had scored the field goal to go up 9-7, but it wasn’t that lopsided. There were a lot of times where Johnny McCrary, he carried the ball 11 times it says, but not all of those were designed quarterback runs. A lot of those were he’s going to pass, it’s covered well, and he took off. It wasn’t as imbalanced. Vandy, listen Vandy wasn’t trying to do a lot through the air, but Florida’s defense really made passing difficult for them. Hats off to Florida. The defense really kept them in this game.

Then again, Johnny Townsend too. Johnny Townsend, I can’t remember when it was, but there was one kick he had that completely flipped the field. He had two that were over 50 yards. Dropped 3 inside the 20. His long one was I think 56 yards that really flipped the field. To me, he is allowing Florida’s defense to be great. He’s helping them be great. When you’re looking at a Vanderbilt team whose offense isn’t great, and now they’re starting field position is the 18, their own 18. It’s going to be a long day, and it was a long day, if you can do that.

Andrew: The only thing I’m going to say about Townsend is this. He’s had a really good season, don’t get me wrong, but it’s concerning to me when he either has to go short and go to the 15 or he goes into the end zone. There is no in between with Townsend. To me that’s something that needs to be worked on is his hang time on that. There should be balls that go out at the 5, go out at the 2. Yesterday he’s hitting balls that were bouncing at the 1 with no chance nobody’s going to catch that. Overall he did really well. Special teams did really well. Chris Thompson again coming up big with a few tackles as well. Good special teams, and that’s the key in games that are decided like this. Antonio Callaway probably the biggest playmaker of the game. It just looked like he was going to take one back on a punt return several times. I think he had 5 punt returns for over 30 yards in the game. He was just a guy that was one break away several times from taking it. He’s becoming dangerous. He’s becoming really dangerous as a punt returner.

Nick: Dangerous, yeah. I was talking to Pat Dooley about it after the game, and we both agree that every time he catches a punt you feel like he can take it back. Both of us said we really kind of haven’t felt that about a player since Brandon James. Brandon James is probably the most prolific return man in Florida history, and that’s only 9 games in. That’s kind of already the air that Callaway’s breathing. Being mentioned with somebody who’s maybe the best to ever do that. An exciting player. I did not get my prediction. I predicted that he would take one back for a touchdown. Almost did, but, like we said, he is going to be a good one on offense, on special teams. Wherever they put him he will be a good player.

Andrew: Yeah. As much as we’re giving D Rob, as much as I’m making fun of him about his dancing and his fumble, 9 catches, 106 yards. Probably his best game of the season, even though he didn’t find the end zone in the game. He had a good game. He was definitely Treon Harris’s guy to go to, as Treon only completed 12 passes in the game. 9 of them to D Rob. D Rob had some good plays. Several comeback routes in the game that turned out to be really good. Props to D Rob on that for having a good game there as well. Overall, Kelvin Taylor didn’t have a ton of running room, but still managed to get 47 yards, so that was good as well.

Nick: Yeah. The offensive line, we kind of talked about it what was going to happen. They just had a very good game against Georgia. Now you’re trying to shift some pieces, and you even saw David Sharpe come back into the game. He didn’t really go through warmups. He did, but not in earnest. Didn’t look like he was 100%, and it kind of look towards 2nd half it was just like, big man, we’re not doing anything. We can’t move. We need you to come in if you can, and they bring him in there. They got to figure something out on that offensive line, because they’re not creating a new line of scrimmage, and we’ve talked about it before, but the offensive line is going to have to let Florida run the ball, because teams are starting to come down into the box with Treon Harris at quarterback, and just daring Florida to throw the ball and stopping the run. The offensive line needs to come through, and can they is the question.

Andrew: I kind of go back to this a little bit on the play calling. The underneath throws were there all day, the stand passes were there. The crossing routes were there. The comeback routes were there. Do some of that to back that pressure off for your offensive line. As you said, the offensive line has to get better. There’s no if, ands, or buts about it. When you can’t even hold up against the three man rush, it’s not there. Then Georgia kind of broke it out last week with the spy on Treon, and Vandy did the same thing. They’re spying Treon. Treon’s not going to have that running room there until Florida’s able to open up the entire field with Treon, and that’s something that I don’t understand why Florida went away from it. Then come back to it in the 4th quarter as the underneath stuff, the slants, the curls, the crossing routes and the stand passes were there. That’s how Florida had the last two drives to get them in field goal position, and then the D Rob fumble.

Something to look at going forward, but again, don’t take anything away from this Vandy defense. This Vandy defense is quick, fast, and was very strong up the middle. It was tough for Florida. That was tough for everybody. You look at the Ole Miss game Vandy had, Vandy played them tough as well. That’s one of the most prolific offenses in the SEC. No disrespect to Vandy at all. They had a good game plan.

Nick: Vandy’s defense really impressed me with their speed, their speed sideline to sideline. All those runs to the outside linebackers were really chasing those down well. Like you said, I don’t know why they didn’t take advantage more, Florida, take more advantage of that short intermediate passing game. To me, that was open, those crossing routes. They went it, and it reminded me of the game, I think it was against ECU, where you had an entire drive where it was stand pass after stand pass to Demarcus Robinson. It was kind of like, that worked, let’s try it again. It worked again. Let’s just keep doing that until they stop it.

To me, when it was crunch time, there’s 3 minutes left, 2.5 minutes left. We have the ball. We need to either score a touchdown or get in a position to score a field goal. That’s what they went to. You wonder, why didn’t you do it a little earlier? It’s all revisionist history. We’re playing couch coach over here, but I thought it was open earlier in the game than when they went to it.

Andrew: Yeah. That’s exactly right. I mean, it’s something that when you look at it you think, it should have been easier, and it was, but, again, you can’t get on Nuss and those guys that much because the offensive line is just struggling that bad. To kind of go back to the defensive side of the ball real quick, overall guys like Morrison, Davis, Neal, the whole entire crew just had really good games overall. I think that the defensive line just is setting the tempo right now that the line of scrimmage is always in the opposing team’s back field, because of guys like Cox, guys like Bullard, McAllister, Brantley. You can go on and on. Cece Jefferson, go on and on about it. It’s just constantly in the back field. Caleb Brantley, he had a couple of off games, and then again yesterday he decided I’m ready to show back up, and here we go.

Nick: Yeah. To me, it is a little troubling for me on offense to kind of see guys disappear. Antonio Callaway’s had a couple good games while Demarcus Robinson hasn’t done anything. Then Demarcus Robinson comes out, 9 catches, nobody else had more than 1 catch the rest of the day. Goolsby, Powell, Callaway, all have 1, and then Cece Jefferson gets 1. Where’s Jake McGee? Where’s C’yontai Lewis? Why does it have to be so centered on one guy and really focused in on one guy? Why not just use your weapons and spread the ball around? Also, Jordan Scarlett, I know he had the one run where big time freshman moment where when you’re a stud high school player you can probably run backwards and make some people miss, can’t lose 15 yards on a carry, but only 4 carries. To me, it’s maybe spreading the ball around and not focusing in on one guy, two guys on offense. I’d like to see a little bit more of that from Florida.

Andrew: You went off topic. I’m talking about defense and the defensive line, and you go back to the offense.

Nick: The defense played great.

Andrew: Yeah, but I want to hear…

Nick: The defense played great. We’re talking about a team that on offense only put up 258 yards and ended 11 drives, 11 Florida drives ended in Vanderbilt territory, and you get 9 points. I don’t know how that happens.

Andrew: At the end of the day it’s a team win. They won the game. You’re 8-1. You got to look at the positives. I said this before, and I said this yesterday. It doesn’t matter how good Florida is, how bad Vandy is, Florida vs. Vandy is always a tough football game. It does not matter.

Nick: It is not always a tough football game.

Andrew: I wish you could tell me five times in the past 20 years this has not been a tough game. Vanderbilt usually has really good games against Florida. It’s the same way Mississippi State against Alabama. Never as good as Alabama is, it doesn’t matter. It always is a tough game. It’s something about it. I mean, the good thing is you won the game. That’s what Florida did. They won the game. They’re 8-1. They won the East, and get ready now to go to Carolina and look ahead to Carolina, and then after that look ahead to Florida State. You get a matchup in Atlanta with probably Alabama in a game that will have tons of storylines.

Andrew: You’re looking at the final score. I agree, this should not have been as close.

Nick: 55-14 football game. I don’t know if I need to go through that play by play.

Andrew: You only picked one game. You go back to the Cutler.

Nick: Yeah. 49-42 in 2005.

Andrew: That’s what I’m saying. It just seems that whatever it is it’s always going to be a slow start in the game, but it is what it is. You got the East wrapped up. Got Carolina going to Columbia this week for Carolina. It’s a different Carolina team. They’re kind of motivated now. They’re playing with a little fire in them. Still not a good football team, but they’re playing with fire, and if Florida goes in Saturday looking ahead, then you never know what happens. Carolina is now playing with house money, as they got an interim coach who’s trying to get his name on a radar for a job.

Nick: Yeah. A couple people on the message board kind of mentioned, are you feeling as good about this South Carolina game? I don’t think you can confidently say yeah, I am. I understand they lost to Tennessee. It was a close game. I don’t think you can really say, yeah, they’re going to walk in there and win it handily or win it easily. It’s going to be a tough game, I think, another low scoring game. Vegas nailed it. Vegas put this game over-under at 35. Got that one. 16 points from the two teams. It’s going to be another low scoring game. Unless Florida can get turnovers on defense and get touchdowns, touchdowns on special teams, touchdowns from the defense, I think all of their games are going to be low scoring. That’s just what the offense is right now with Treon Harris.

Andrew: Exactly. I mean, it is what it is on offense for this year. You lose your starting quarterback. It is what it is. The defense keeps playing ball, and at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what the score is. It’s a W in the book, and the Gators are 8-1. That’s all that matters to me.

Nick: There were two big games. Alabama vs. LSU, Alabama took that one and will meet Florida in Atlanta. Clemson beat the school out west. That meant that there weren’t a lot of big time visitors at this game, at this Homecoming game, but there was a pretty big name in attendance, Andrew.

Andrew: Yeah. I think I told you on Wednesday that Feleipe Franks, LSU Tiger commit, was coming into town. He was trying to hide it as much as he possibly could. You can’t hide it very much when you deck yourself out in Florida gear, and then you walk through the crowd with it. The news came out. He says he is still solid to LSU, but looking around. LSU was caught off guard, and not very happy he visited Florida, because he didn’t tell LSU he was going to visit Florida. To me that says trouble brewing in the Franks household between LSU.

Right now I think the Gators have a great shot at flipping Franks. I know I have not been the biggest supporter of Franks in the past, and I’ll continue to say he has very big issues with accuracy, but he does have a 6’5” frame, big old frame, long arms, good accuracy. We’ll see what happens when he gets a quarterback coach like a Nussmeyer, McElwain, if he flips, or if he goes to LSU and he has Cam Cameron there, what happens. The thing that I will say is temper expectations of what a guy like Franks can do year one, whether that be at LSU or Florida, wherever it is. Right now I do think Florida’s got a great shot at flipping Franks.

The guy they even have a better shot at flipping is Auburn receiver commit, Eli Stove, made that trip yesterday. 6’, 6’1”, 175 pound receiver who’s just a monster playmaker. He’s a guy that can play corner if need be, can play receiver, can play some tailback, kick returner, punt returner. He’s just an all-around athlete. I don’t think it’s an if he will flip, more so it’s a when will he flip. I think Stove’s a guy that could be the next member of the 2016 Gator class to jump on that Mac train.

Nick: Yeah. I’m kind of with you on the Feleipe Franks boat, but Florida does want to get another guy in there. Eli Stove, very interesting prospect, and we’re really hammered in on that six, that six number at wide receiver. Is that right?

Andrew: Pretty much. It’s a back and forth kind of deal where one day Stove is in, and then the next day Bruce is in. Right now I think Bruce stays with the U at Miami, and I think that they get six in the class though. The biggest thing is to continue adding playmakers. You look at a guy like Callaway, can you honestly say that anybody outside of Callaway is a legit playmaker? I can’t right now. Brandon Powell’s a good football player, but he kind of goes dormant at times. They need more playmakers. You get a guy like a Stove, a Freddie Swain, a Josh Hammond, who is taking an official to Florida this weekend, even a guy like Nate Craig, who may not be as fast as these other guys, but he’s a big time playmaker at 6’2”. Is a guy that can go over the top as well as go across the middle. Adding playmakers is huge, and I think Mac’s doing a great job of doing that, getting big time playmakers in this class. He sees that it needs to happen, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.

Nick: I didn’t really bring this up, so I’m just popping it on you. In the media at least, with us, there’s been a lot of talk about Florida could be losing a lot of guys on defense, and I’ve mentioned it on here before. I’m kind of thinking there’s so much to do on offense, as far as recruiting and getting guys for Mac’s system in, but you can’t really let off on the defense, because you’ve got all these guys that are making impacts are sophomores, so you’ve got one more year of them, maybe two, or they’re juniors, and you’ve got this could be it. Defensively I think Florida can’t afford to rest on their laurels. We’ll say that. They can’t afford to just say, our defense is good, let’s fix the offense, and we’ll come back and worry about the defense later.

Andrew: Yeah, but the thing is this. You got a guy like Chauncey Gardner who I think is a phenomenal football player, whether he played nickel, whether he plays safety.

Nick: I was thinking he’s kind of a Marcus Maye type.

Andrew: Marcus Maye, Jalen Watkins kind of guy. I kind of think that. Very versatile guy. Then you got a Javon Myers, a long athletic corner who in my opinion is going to be a very good player. You got a guy like Jawan Taylor, who in my opinion is a very good free safety there. Then you look at the defensive line, and you got a guy like Antonious Clayton. That’s going to be a guy that’s going to be a thicker version of McAllister or a smaller version of Dante Fowler. Then you got guys like Janarius Robinson on the market still, Shavar Manuel, Dexter Lawrence. They’re getting the players still there, and then you go to linebacker. They got a guy like Jeremiah Moon. You got Vosean Joseph. Then you’re going to look at a guy like Mack Wilson who’s the top linebacker in the country. You start to get those guys, and you get it.

Do they have that one elite superstar in this class on the defensive side of the ball? Not yet. Chauncey Gardner could be that guy, not yet, but outside of Vernon Hargreaves who was coming into Florida as a top guy? Jonathan Bullard was a five star, but he never got a ton of credit. He was always overshadowed by Fowler. Quincy Wilson, Jalen Tabor always got good credit, but they had guys like Jalen Ramsey who was favored over those guys.

Nick: Really you’d have to go back to Ronald Powell, and Ronald Powell never really looked like…

Andrew: Or Vernon Hargreaves. That’s what I’m saying. Those are the guys that’s there. Keanu Neal. I think that it’s more of what they can do in the system. For me it’s not so much of how these guys they get, more so is how does Collins and those guys coach these guys up to blend in with guys like Quincy. For me it’s more of a depth purpose next year. Does Gardner, does a guy like Chris Williamson, somebody like that step up to play with Quincy? As far as getting the players I think it’s there, and I think they’re doing a good job. You look at the class, it’s pretty evenly split right now defense to offense. You got six receivers committed, or five receivers committed, and you got six DBs committed.

Nick: Yeah. If I was a defensive recruit I’d watch that performance on Saturday and watch the performances of the defense’s entire year, and I’d say, that looks like fun. I want to do that.

Andrew: If you’re looking at defense it’s Alabama or Florida. Really. You look at those two defenses. Someone asked me this. They’re like, Alabama’s defensive line is so good. I’m like, but Florida’s isn’t chopped liver. Let’s just be honest. Florida’s not chopped liver. These teams don’t have no time to throw the ball either. It’s going to come. Chris Rumph, in my opinion, is one of, if not the best, defensive line recruiters, probably with Tosh Lupoi over at Alabama as far as being good recruiters on the defensive line.

Everyone always looks at classes right now. Don’t look at the class right now. Let me know in January or February what’s going on, because right now, Rumph’s always known as a finisher in the recruiting. Guys like Manuel, guys like Janarius Robinson, Brian Burns, Dexter Lawrence, they haven’t signed anywhere. Let Rumph have time when the season’s over with, get these guys on campus, and then let me know what happens.

Real quick, while we’re on this, before we get off the recruiting topic, just wanted to give a quick update on Lamical Perine. Did get an Alabama offer. I said it before, and I’ll say it again. He’ll be in the orange and blue in February. Just relax. He didn’t take the visit to Alabama yesterday, and don’t think that he was every planning on it. He may have said I may be planning on it, it’s all to get the media off his back. Just relax and watch 26 do his thing in Gainesville.

Nick: You taking a page out of Aaron Rogers’ book.

Andrew: That’s right.

Nick: R-E-L-A-X. Relax.

Andrew: Relax. The man will be in Gainesville. You heard it from me. As Nick will tell you, if anybody’s going to know what’s going on with 26 it’s going to be the man you’re just listening to.

Nick: Yup. Those Alabama boys.

Andrew: That’s right.

Nick: Real quick before we run out of here. Can we do something about this targeting penalty?

Andrew: Oh my God. It’s awful.

Nick: The rule, the NCAA will say, we’re thinking of player safety. The NCAA is thinking of we don’t want a player 20 years from now suing us when he has brain trauma. Football’s a physical game. People know what they’re signing up for when they play it. This rule, you can say it’s a good rule. Maybe it will keep players safe. Concussions have gone down since you put it in. Then teach the referees and the replay operators how to call it, because what Jordan Sherit did is how a coach would teach a first year kid playing football how to tackle. His head was up. He was looking at what he was hitting. That was a clean tackle.

Jordan Sherit, any defensive player, can’t yell at the guy they’re about to tackle and say, I’m coming at your chest. Don’t be a human and have a natural reaction to turtle up before you get hit, which would bring your head down six inches. Now the target, in a split second Jordan Sherit’s target, which was Johnny McCreary’s chest, ends up now being a little bit higher than that. It’s a bogus call. It’s a terrible call. These guys don’t know how to make the call correctly. Cody Riggs against Missouri, that’s targeting. What we saw the past two weeks, that’s not targeting.

Andrew: Yeah. My thing is this. I understand the penalty, and it’s a great rule. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great rule. These guys hitting guys in the head, it’s a great rule, but it’s inconsistent of the call in what they’re looking at. You look at the Alabama game last night. Someone hit me on Twitter, and they’re like, how is that not targeting? An Alabama defender is running down on special teams and just absolutely launches head first into the guy, hits him in the head. No targeting call. You look at the Auburn vs. Texas A&M game. I saw the tail end of it. He was going for a block, and the Auburn blocker ducks. When he ducks that’s head to head, and they eject him.

It’s like you have to understand what you’re calling. To say, did he mean intent? There’s only one person that knows if he was intending to do it, and that’s the kid that did it. He’s not going to admit that he intentionally hurt someone. Take out that any way that it can be intent or not. It’s either he hit head on or not. If he hit head on, he’s ejected. If not, he’s not. You have to make that rule, but I’m like you, it’s stupid. Cronkrite got the bad end of the deal Sherit got the bad end of the deal. Thank God it didn’t cost somebody a football game, because Mac would have probably been a little hot had Vandy scored after that penalty.

Nick: That might have been the best play of Jordan Sherit’s career, and now he’s going to miss an entire half of football because of it.

Andrew: An entire game. He misses the game, because it was late in the 2nd half. He didn’t have to sit out the 2nd half. He’s done for the game.

Nick: That’s terrible.

Andrew: It’s very terrible. I hate the rule. It’s one of those rules that like, you look at the replay, and you’re like, that’s not. Come back, a replay says, yes it was. Then hits that look like it was clear head to head they come back and not targeting. It’s like nobody knows what it is. To me there is no clear rule of that. I don’t know how you fix that rule, but something needs to be done in the NCAA after this year about it. Then it sucks, because you can’t even review it and have it turned over. It’s still there. It sucks.

Nick, before we get out of here we got to run down our three players. I don’t think either one of us did very hot this week. I don’t think so. You had Treon Harris.

Nick: I would say no.

Andrew: Yeah, and then my guy was Kelvin Taylor. He had a touchdown in the game on offense.

Nick: 2.8 yard per run average. A 9 yard long, I don’t think any offensive player, other than D Rob, should warrant getting a yes.

Andrew: Yeah. I think you have to give me a no for that. Your second guy was Jon Jon Bullard. I’m not going against that at all. 100%, the man is playing good football. You want to talk about when players go and say, should I go in the draft or not, someone should turn on the tape of Jon Bullard and give that to them, because this man made him so much money this year by coming back to school.

Nick: It’s unbelievable.

Andrew: He is just a fricking animal. I feel like I type Jon Bullard, Jon Bullard, 9,000 times, and I just need a control something to hit Jonathan Bullard, because that’s how dominant he is. I’ll give a yes on that. My second guy was Jalen Tabor. He had a sack in the game, but besides that did nothing. Nothing really at all. No balls really thrown his way. I’m going to give myself a loss for that one as well. Your third player was…

Nick: Antonio Callaway.

Andrew: I can’t really give you a win for that, buddy.

Nick: Really?

Andrew: I mean.

Nick: In the return game, 7 returns, punt returns, for 110 yards. A 16 average. I think I might sneak in there with the return game with him. Obviously on offense, I mentioned it before, really only three guys caught passes, excluding the Cece Jefferson fake play, other than Demarcus Robinson. One catch for 11 yards offensively, but I think special teams wise I can get a win, and that’s really what I put him down there for. I predicted the touchdown. He was a shoestring tackle or two away from actually getting that done. I would argue that I should get a win there.

Andrew: I’ll tell you what, how about we give you a half a point there, because he did okay on special teams. It doesn’t matter, because you’re going to win this thing. My last guy was D Rob, besides the fumble in my opinion he was very big in the game, so I’m giving myself a win. As the week goes I’ll give you a win, and you can take care of the win for this week. Sound good?

Nick: There it is.

Andrew: There it is. Nick, real quick a couple of things. Got basketball on Friday. We hope you guys enjoyed our coverage from last Thursday. Again, it’ll just be a normal week stuff. I hope to have some guys on the podcast. Just a quick little spoiler, I’m going to have on Lamical Perine and Mark Thompson on my podcast this week. That’s going to be something for you guys to listen to.

Nick: How about that? After talking about Perine today, getting him on the podcast this week. Maybe he’ll calm people down.

Andrew: Maybe so. There’s nothing, listening to dipshits that don’t know what they’re talking about in a situation is just uncalled for. That’s here for another day. Nick, tell everybody where they can find us, and then say your few magic words. I’m going to ruin it again, and then we’re getting out of here.

Nick: You know it. As always, @NickdelaTorreGC on Twitter. @AndrewSpiveyGC on Twitter. www.GatorCountry.com for all of your updates. Also, TheGatorCountry on Instagram. We’ve some great edits from some very talented guys that we’re working with. Exciting game. I will be up in Columbia, South Carolina this week for the game. Then back at home for FAU, home for Florida State, and then Andrew and I will be in Atlanta.

Andrew: Hotlanta. I will be there for Florida State, as it is guaranteed to be loaded with recruits. That game, so far the number I’ve been told is well over 100. It should be fantastic for that game with Florida State. Then Hotlanta is the best city in the world, no doubt about it. Go Braves. Maybe Florida will do well in that game.

Nick: We’ll see. I’m just excited to be there. Back in a big game. The goal was to restore the order. Order restored. If this isn’t order restored in the SEC, Florida and Alabama playing in the SEC championship, that’s what the SEC is. This is order restored in the West and East, but now I’m running on.

Andrew: Real quick. We almost went a whole podcast, and I feel bad.

Nick: I thought it. I thought it in my head, and then I got off on a tangent.

Andrew: We did not even think about the man. Austin Hardin with a big kick to win the game. We talked about the offense enough. I’ll be honest, the reason I noticed that was I went back to my desktop and noticed his tweets last night. He went on and rambled. If you called him out chances are you got a tweet from the Gators’ kicker last night. Much respect to Austin Hardin for going out and making that kick. It’d have been very easy for him to miss the kick with his confidence, but I speak for myself, I know a lot of people don’t give him much credit, but glad to see that kick go through for him for his confidence.

Nick: Yeah. To me, when I’m sitting in the press box I don’t really have an angle on the field goal posts. I can’t really tell if it went in or not. To me, the best way for me to know if a kick went in or not is I watch the kicker. They have a head on look. They can see where the ball’s going. They know how it felt when they kicked it. I’m watching Austin Hardin the entire time. He just let his emotion just come out. He had missed three, or it was only 3 of his last 9, dating back to last year against FSU. He hears what everyone’s talking about, and it’s proof that he hears what you’re saying going through his Twitter last night. To see how excited he was, how happy he was, how overjoyed he was to com through for himself, for his teammates with his second really career clutch kick was really cool to see, and it let me know that the field goal was good.

Andrew: It was good. If you talk trash about him, don’t get your feelings hurt. You talked it. Be a man. Take the pop back. Nick, go ahead. Say your magic words, and let’s get out of here.

Nick: I want to shout out the Basement in Orlando. That is the bar. I have a couple friends that work there. That is the bar that offered free beer until UCF won a football game. The fighting Golden Knights are 0-9. The Basement has given away 9,973 free beers, and they will continue giving away free beer until UCF wins a game, which looks like it might not be ever.

Andrew: Wow. Does this happen in the off season as well?

Nick: No, just during football season.

Andrew: I was going to say, it could be a long couple years. Could be a long couple of years for that to happen. That’s a crazy thing. My south Alabama Jaguars did come from behind, down 24 points to get a big Homecoming win over Idaho.

Nick: Idaho. That is a big win.

Andrew: Go Jags. South in your mouth.

Nick: I’m out of here. If you’re in Orlando next Saturday, the Basement. If you are in South Carolina this Saturday let me know. I will be there, and as always, you stay classy, Gator Country.

Andrew: That’s right. Butch, Mark, you know the deal. You still stuck. As always, go Braves, and congrats to Coach Mac on getting the East championship. Go Braves.

About Andrew Spivey

Andrew always knew he wanted to be involved with sports in some capacity. He began by coaching high school football for six years before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. While coaching, he was a part of two state semifinal teams in the state of Alabama. Given his past coaching experience, he figured covering recruiting would be a perfect fit. He began his career as an intern for Rivals.com, covering University of Florida football recruiting. After interning with Rivals for six months, he joined the Gator Country family as a recruiting analyst. Andrew enjoys spending his free time on the golf course and watching his beloved Atlanta Braves. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewSpiveyGC.

Thanks again for the podcast guys. I love reading it all on here. That Vandy game was giving me nightmare flashbacks to the last 4 years with how poorly we played on offense. I think Mac will get some things corrected for the USCe game.

A couple quick questions/comments:
1. I didn’t notice Sharpe in the game, so I’m glad to hear he was able to play. Any word on Ivey?
2. Can’t wait to hear from Thompson and Perine later in the week. I’m so stoked to watch those guys play in O&B.
3. I’ll be in Columbia this weekend for the game. What time do I need to be there to watch the guys walk in and everything?

Gator Country’s podcast brings you the latest episode where the gang breaks down the Florida Gators football game against Vanderbilt on Saturday afternoon where the Gators clinched the SEC Eastern Division Championship.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre break down what happened to the Florida offense on Saturday and what they could’ve done differently to score points against Vanderbilt.

Andrew and Nick also look at the defense and how the Florida Gators football team is rallying around that defense, plus they look ahead to the South Carolina game this weekend in Columbia, South Carolina.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew: What’s up, Gator Country? This is your man, Andrew Spivey, talking as the Florida Gators are SEC Eastern Division Champions. With my man, Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, wasn’t pretty, but at the end of the day the Gators are holding the trophy for the Eastern Division, and everything is good in Gainesville.

Nick: Yeah. Before the year nobody would have thought this. Before Saturday everyone would have thought it would have looked a lot prettier. Kind of incredible. Jim McElwain is just the third coach in SEC history to take his team to the SEC championship game in his first year. He joins Gus Malzahn and Les Miles. That’s pretty incredible, given what this team has looked like the past two years. Pretty remarkable to say that they’re SEC East Champions. I know the SEC East is down or whatever, but this is something that you can’t take away from them. It’s, to me, remarkable the coaching job that the entire staff has done.

Andrew: It’s great to see that the game plan was there. I mean, you and I both said it was going to be a tough game. This was a good Vanderbilt defense. This Vanderbilt defense has one of the better defensive lines in the country, not just the SEC, and overall they kind of played around with Florida not having their starting line together. That was a big thing. Then Treon didn’t have a good game overall. The key is turnovers. If Florida doesn’t have four turnovers in the game than this is very easily 28-7, 35-7, could very well have been a lot higher scoring game had it not been four turnovers, three within the 30 yard line of Vanderbilt.

Nick: Yeah. Really no excuse for it. There’s no excuse for the fumbles, especially when you get down into the red area. When you get down in the red zone you can’t do stuff like that. I think Demarcus Robinson was actually, on his fumble, was actually holding onto the ball probably the best he had all game. He’s the kind of guy that likes to just palm the football, and he’ll hold it out there. Treon Harris, when he runs sometimes he’ll kind of do the same thing and let the ball get a little too low, instead of tucking it in. You better believe that will be worked on this week. It’s just tough. Those turnovers are definitely going to be shown to the team until they want to rip their eyes out. They’re going to be shown over and over and over, because Florida was really shooting themselves in the foot. Four turnovers on the day, the interception actually as a good turnover. Someone told me, he should have thrown that ball away. I said, the interception probably picked him up about 14 yards.

Andrew: When it’s 4th down, you don’t throw that ball away. You just don’t. Then Cece fumbled. I looked at that again. It wasn’t a fumble. He was down on a play, but take away any chance for it to be called a fumble and just hang onto the ball through the play.

Nick: Let’s talk about that real quick. That was a great play call.

Andrew: It was a great play.

Nick: That fake field goal, so you hike, and you get Austin Hardin to run out, and Johnny Townsend fakes that.

Andrew: That was Neil MacInnes.

Nick: Sorry. Neil Macinnies. Neil MacInnes runs out, and you get that fake, kind of looks like the play that LSU hit Florida with, but then you’ve got Cece Jefferson coming across. So now you fake that throw to the dentist, and you get the pitch inside to Cece. I mean, the play worked, other than the fumble, but great play call. Very interesting design. Unfortunate that you used it in that spot, and now you probably can’t use it again this year, but I liked that play call a lot.

Andrew: I’ve seen a lot of people say, why’d they use it there? It’s all about setting things up there. Florida had Georgia was jumping the snap count on them on their field goals and was leafing. Now that makes teams respect that, so teams now won’t jump as quick. Also now on a fake they’re going to be more inside, and now you have that potential for the swing pass to a Hardin or MacInnes or whoever it is. It’s all about game planning for the next game. Everybody said on Twitter they should have saved that for Florida State. Sure, but that’s not the only fake in their bag of tricks. It’s there, and it sets up other things.

I like that a lot, but to kind of go back to Treon’s fumble. I could see he was trying to stretch for the 1st down it looked like, but you have to have that ball in the left hand. You’re always taught as a ball carrier to always carry the ball on the arm closest to the sideline. He needs to switch that ball there, so that way if it is bumped out it goes out of bounds. Then the same thing with D Rob. D Rob’s ball carrying and running after the catch for him is just he looks like an alien. He will go 9,000 yards to get out of bounds instead of going 5 yards up the field and taking a hit. It was very clear in the Vandy game he wanted no part of contact.

Nick: What do you mean the Vandy game? It’s been clear for three years. Listen, he’s a skill position player. He doesn’t like getting hit. You kind of take the good with the bad.

Andrew: You have to admit that was worse in the Vandy game.

Nick: No. That’s what he’s done for three years. I’ve been saying it for three years. Every week somebody will tweet at me, I see what you’re talking about about D Rob. I’m like, how are you just seeing it now?

Andrew: It’s been obvious forever, but yesterday, Saturday in the Vandy game, there was one play he literally went backwards 5 yards just so he could have a clear path out of bounds. He just needs to have a sign up that says, won’t gain yards. Just let me go down. That’s what he needs to carry. Let him make the catch and then go down. I am definitely not sure what’s going on with him, but the story of the game was definitely the defense. 175 yards is all they gave up. 71 of those came on one play to Ralph Webb where Jordan Sheritt just decided he wasn’t playing ball. The ref decided he wanted to block Keanu Neal, and Webb had reservations for six. If you take that away it’s really 101, 102 yards of total offense for Vandy.

Nick: 101 yards on 61 plays, minus the one long Webb run.

Andrew: So Florida just dominated that game. This is a guy that won’t get as much credit for it, but yesterday game ball Bryan Cox played a damn good football game. He only had 9 tackles in the game and led the team, but I guarantee you he was in on 20 plays or better in the game. 9 tackles, 8 solo, with a sack and a 1.5 tackles for a loss in the game. There were several plays he was in on the play and just making plays happen. Bryan Cox is playing some good football.

Nick: I mean, Florida as a whole, 5 sacks, 11 tackles for a loss, 5 quarterback hurries. When you look at Vanderbilt’s runs versus pass, so they threw the ball 14 times. A lot of that came after Florida had scored the field goal to go up 9-7, but it wasn’t that lopsided. There were a lot of times where Johnny McCrary, he carried the ball 11 times it says, but not all of those were designed quarterback runs. A lot of those were he’s going to pass, it’s covered well, and he took off. It wasn’t as imbalanced. Vandy, listen Vandy wasn’t trying to do a lot through the air, but Florida’s defense really made passing difficult for them. Hats off to Florida. The defense really kept them in this game.

Then again, Johnny Townsend too. Johnny Townsend, I can’t remember when it was, but there was one kick he had that completely flipped the field. He had two that were over 50 yards. Dropped 3 inside the 20. His long one was I think 56 yards that really flipped the field. To me, he is allowing Florida’s defense to be great. He’s helping them be great. When you’re looking at a Vanderbilt team whose offense isn’t great, and now they’re starting field position is the 18, their own 18. It’s going to be a long day, and it was a long day, if you can do that.

Andrew: The only thing I’m going to say about Townsend is this. He’s had a really good season, don’t get me wrong, but it’s concerning to me when he either has to go short and go to the 15 or he goes into the end zone. There is no in between with Townsend. To me that’s something that needs to be worked on is his hang time on that. There should be balls that go out at the 5, go out at the 2. Yesterday he’s hitting balls that were bouncing at the 1 with no chance nobody’s going to catch that. Overall he did really well. Special teams did really well. Chris Thompson again coming up big with a few tackles as well. Good special teams, and that’s the key in games that are decided like this. Antonio Callaway probably the biggest playmaker of the game. It just looked like he was going to take one back on a punt return several times. I think he had 5 punt returns for over 30 yards in the game. He was just a guy that was one break away several times from taking it. He’s becoming dangerous. He’s becoming really dangerous as a punt returner.

Nick: Dangerous, yeah. I was talking to Pat Dooley about it after the game, and we both agree that every time he catches a punt you feel like he can take it back. Both of us said we really kind of haven’t felt that about a player since Brandon James. Brandon James is probably the most prolific return man in Florida history, and that’s only 9 games in. That’s kind of already the air that Callaway’s breathing. Being mentioned with somebody who’s maybe the best to ever do that. An exciting player. I did not get my prediction. I predicted that he would take one back for a touchdown. Almost did, but, like we said, he is going to be a good one on offense, on special teams. Wherever they put him he will be a good player.

Andrew: Yeah. As much as we’re giving D Rob, as much as I’m making fun of him about his dancing and his fumble, 9 catches, 106 yards. Probably his best game of the season, even though he didn’t find the end zone in the game. He had a good game. He was definitely Treon Harris’s guy to go to, as Treon only completed 12 passes in the game. 9 of them to D Rob. D Rob had some good plays. Several comeback routes in the game that turned out to be really good. Props to D Rob on that for having a good game there as well. Overall, Kelvin Taylor didn’t have a ton of running room, but still managed to get 47 yards, so that was good as well.

Nick: Yeah. The offensive line, we kind of talked about it what was going to happen. They just had a very good game against Georgia. Now you’re trying to shift some pieces, and you even saw David Sharpe come back into the game. He didn’t really go through warmups. He did, but not in earnest. Didn’t look like he was 100%, and it kind of look towards 2nd half it was just like, big man, we’re not doing anything. We can’t move. We need you to come in if you can, and they bring him in there. They got to figure something out on that offensive line, because they’re not creating a new line of scrimmage, and we’ve talked about it before, but the offensive line is going to have to let Florida run the ball, because teams are starting to come down into the box with Treon Harris at quarterback, and just daring Florida to throw the ball and stopping the run. The offensive line needs to come through, and can they is the question.

Andrew: I kind of go back to this a little bit on the play calling. The underneath throws were there all day, the stand passes were there. The crossing routes were there. The comeback routes were there. Do some of that to back that pressure off for your offensive line. As you said, the offensive line has to get better. There’s no if, ands, or buts about it. When you can’t even hold up against the three man rush, it’s not there. Then Georgia kind of broke it out last week with the spy on Treon, and Vandy did the same thing. They’re spying Treon. Treon’s not going to have that running room there until Florida’s able to open up the entire field with Treon, and that’s something that I don’t understand why Florida went away from it. Then come back to it in the 4th quarter as the underneath stuff, the slants, the curls, the crossing routes and the stand passes were there. That’s how Florida had the last two drives to get them in field goal position, and then the D Rob fumble.

Something to look at going forward, but again, don’t take anything away from this Vandy defense. This Vandy defense is quick, fast, and was very strong up the middle. It was tough for Florida. That was tough for everybody. You look at the Ole Miss game Vandy had, Vandy played them tough as well. That’s one of the most prolific offenses in the SEC. No disrespect to Vandy at all. They had a good game plan.

Nick: Vandy’s defense really impressed me with their speed, their speed sideline to sideline. All those runs to the outside linebackers were really chasing those down well. Like you said, I don’t know why they didn’t take advantage more, Florida, take more advantage of that short intermediate passing game. To me, that was open, those crossing routes. They went it, and it reminded me of the game, I think it was against ECU, where you had an entire drive where it was stand pass after stand pass to Demarcus Robinson. It was kind of like, that worked, let’s try it again. It worked again. Let’s just keep doing that until they stop it.

To me, when it was crunch time, there’s 3 minutes left, 2.5 minutes left. We have the ball. We need to either score a touchdown or get in a position to score a field goal. That’s what they went to. You wonder, why didn’t you do it a little earlier? It’s all revisionist history. We’re playing couch coach over here, but I thought it was open earlier in the game than when they went to it.

Andrew: Yeah. That’s exactly right. I mean, it’s something that when you look at it you think, it should have been easier, and it was, but, again, you can’t get on Nuss and those guys that much because the offensive line is just struggling that bad. To kind of go back to the defensive side of the ball real quick, overall guys like Morrison, Davis, Neal, the whole entire crew just had really good games overall. I think that the defensive line just is setting the tempo right now that the line of scrimmage is always in the opposing team’s back field, because of guys like Cox, guys like Bullard, McAllister, Brantley. You can go on and on. Cece Jefferson, go on and on about it. It’s just constantly in the back field. Caleb Brantley, he had a couple of off games, and then again yesterday he decided I’m ready to show back up, and here we go.

Nick: Yeah. To me, it is a little troubling for me on offense to kind of see guys disappear. Antonio Callaway’s had a couple good games while Demarcus Robinson hasn’t done anything. Then Demarcus Robinson comes out, 9 catches, nobody else had more than 1 catch the rest of the day. Goolsby, Powell, Callaway, all have 1, and then Cece Jefferson gets 1. Where’s Jake McGee? Where’s C’yontai Lewis? Why does it have to be so centered on one guy and really focused in on one guy? Why not just use your weapons and spread the ball around? Also, Jordan Scarlett, I know he had the one run where big time freshman moment where when you’re a stud high school player you can probably run backwards and make some people miss, can’t lose 15 yards on a carry, but only 4 carries. To me, it’s maybe spreading the ball around and not focusing in on one guy, two guys on offense. I’d like to see a little bit more of that from Florida.

Andrew: You went off topic. I’m talking about defense and the defensive line, and you go back to the offense.

Nick: The defense played great.

Andrew: Yeah, but I want to hear…

Nick: The defense played great. We’re talking about a team that on offense only put up 258 yards and ended 11 drives, 11 Florida drives ended in Vanderbilt territory, and you get 9 points. I don’t know how that happens.

Andrew: At the end of the day it’s a team win. They won the game. You’re 8-1. You got to look at the positives. I said this before, and I said this yesterday. It doesn’t matter how good Florida is, how bad Vandy is, Florida vs. Vandy is always a tough football game. It does not matter.

Nick: It is not always a tough football game.

Andrew: I wish you could tell me five times in the past 20 years this has not been a tough game. Vanderbilt usually has really good games against Florida. It’s the same way Mississippi State against Alabama. Never as good as Alabama is, it doesn’t matter. It always is a tough game. It’s something about it. I mean, the good thing is you won the game. That’s what Florida did. They won the game. They’re 8-1. They won the East, and get ready now to go to Carolina and look ahead to Carolina, and then after that look ahead to Florida State. You get a matchup in Atlanta with probably Alabama in a game that will have tons of storylines.

Andrew: You’re looking at the final score. I agree, this should not have been as close.

Nick: 55-14 football game. I don’t know if I need to go through that play by play.

Andrew: You only picked one game. You go back to the Cutler.

Nick: Yeah. 49-42 in 2005.

Andrew: That’s what I’m saying. It just seems that whatever it is it’s always going to be a slow start in the game, but it is what it is. You got the East wrapped up. Got Carolina going to Columbia this week for Carolina. It’s a different Carolina team. They’re kind of motivated now. They’re playing with a little fire in them. Still not a good football team, but they’re playing with fire, and if Florida goes in Saturday looking ahead, then you never know what happens. Carolina is now playing with house money, as they got an interim coach who’s trying to get his name on a radar for a job.

Nick: Yeah. A couple people on the message board kind of mentioned, are you feeling as good about this South Carolina game? I don’t think you can confidently say yeah, I am. I understand they lost to Tennessee. It was a close game. I don’t think you can really say, yeah, they’re going to walk in there and win it handily or win it easily. It’s going to be a tough game, I think, another low scoring game. Vegas nailed it. Vegas put this game over-under at 35. Got that one. 16 points from the two teams. It’s going to be another low scoring game. Unless Florida can get turnovers on defense and get touchdowns, touchdowns on special teams, touchdowns from the defense, I think all of their games are going to be low scoring. That’s just what the offense is right now with Treon Harris.

Andrew: Exactly. I mean, it is what it is on offense for this year. You lose your starting quarterback. It is what it is. The defense keeps playing ball, and at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what the score is. It’s a W in the book, and the Gators are 8-1. That’s all that matters to me.

Nick: There were two big games. Alabama vs. LSU, Alabama took that one and will meet Florida in Atlanta. Clemson beat the school out west. That meant that there weren’t a lot of big time visitors at this game, at this Homecoming game, but there was a pretty big name in attendance, Andrew.

Andrew: Yeah. I think I told you on Wednesday that Feleipe Franks, LSU Tiger commit, was coming into town. He was trying to hide it as much as he possibly could. You can’t hide it very much when you deck yourself out in Florida gear, and then you walk through the crowd with it. The news came out. He says he is still solid to LSU, but looking around. LSU was caught off guard, and not very happy he visited Florida, because he didn’t tell LSU he was going to visit Florida. To me that says trouble brewing in the Franks household between LSU.

Right now I think the Gators have a great shot at flipping Franks. I know I have not been the biggest supporter of Franks in the past, and I’ll continue to say he has very big issues with accuracy, but he does have a 6’5” frame, big old frame, long arms, good accuracy. We’ll see what happens when he gets a quarterback coach like a Nussmeyer, McElwain, if he flips, or if he goes to LSU and he has Cam Cameron there, what happens. The thing that I will say is temper expectations of what a guy like Franks can do year one, whether that be at LSU or Florida, wherever it is. Right now I do think Florida’s got a great shot at flipping Franks.

The guy they even have a better shot at flipping is Auburn receiver commit, Eli Stove, made that trip yesterday. 6’, 6’1”, 175 pound receiver who’s just a monster playmaker. He’s a guy that can play corner if need be, can play receiver, can play some tailback, kick returner, punt returner. He’s just an all-around athlete. I don’t think it’s an if he will flip, more so it’s a when will he flip. I think Stove’s a guy that could be the next member of the 2016 Gator class to jump on that Mac train.

Nick: Yeah. I’m kind of with you on the Feleipe Franks boat, but Florida does want to get another guy in there. Eli Stove, very interesting prospect, and we’re really hammered in on that six, that six number at wide receiver. Is that right?

Andrew: Pretty much. It’s a back and forth kind of deal where one day Stove is in, and then the next day Bruce is in. Right now I think Bruce stays with the U at Miami, and I think that they get six in the class though. The biggest thing is to continue adding playmakers. You look at a guy like Callaway, can you honestly say that anybody outside of Callaway is a legit playmaker? I can’t right now. Brandon Powell’s a good football player, but he kind of goes dormant at times. They need more playmakers. You get a guy like a Stove, a Freddie Swain, a Josh Hammond, who is taking an official to Florida this weekend, even a guy like Nate Craig, who may not be as fast as these other guys, but he’s a big time playmaker at 6’2”. Is a guy that can go over the top as well as go across the middle. Adding playmakers is huge, and I think Mac’s doing a great job of doing that, getting big time playmakers in this class. He sees that it needs to happen, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.

Nick: I didn’t really bring this up, so I’m just popping it on you. In the media at least, with us, there’s been a lot of talk about Florida could be losing a lot of guys on defense, and I’ve mentioned it on here before. I’m kind of thinking there’s so much to do on offense, as far as recruiting and getting guys for Mac’s system in, but you can’t really let off on the defense, because you’ve got all these guys that are making impacts are sophomores, so you’ve got one more year of them, maybe two, or they’re juniors, and you’ve got this could be it. Defensively I think Florida can’t afford to rest on their laurels. We’ll say that. They can’t afford to just say, our defense is good, let’s fix the offense, and we’ll come back and worry about the defense later.

Andrew: Yeah, but the thing is this. You got a guy like Chauncey Gardner who I think is a phenomenal football player, whether he played nickel, whether he plays safety.

Nick: I was thinking he’s kind of a Marcus Maye type.

Andrew: Marcus Maye, Jalen Watkins kind of guy. I kind of think that. Very versatile guy. Then you got a Javon Myers, a long athletic corner who in my opinion is going to be a very good player. You got a guy like Jawan Taylor, who in my opinion is a very good free safety there. Then you look at the defensive line, and you got a guy like Antonious Clayton. That’s going to be a guy that’s going to be a thicker version of McAllister or a smaller version of Dante Fowler. Then you got guys like Janarius Robinson on the market still, Shavar Manuel, Dexter Lawrence. They’re getting the players still there, and then you go to linebacker. They got a guy like Jeremiah Moon. You got Vosean Joseph. Then you’re going to look at a guy like Mack Wilson who’s the top linebacker in the country. You start to get those guys, and you get it.

Do they have that one elite superstar in this class on the defensive side of the ball? Not yet. Chauncey Gardner could be that guy, not yet, but outside of Vernon Hargreaves who was coming into Florida as a top guy? Jonathan Bullard was a five star, but he never got a ton of credit. He was always overshadowed by Fowler. Quincy Wilson, Jalen Tabor always got good credit, but they had guys like Jalen Ramsey who was favored over those guys.

Nick: Really you’d have to go back to Ronald Powell, and Ronald Powell never really looked like…

Andrew: Or Vernon Hargreaves. That’s what I’m saying. Those are the guys that’s there. Keanu Neal. I think that it’s more of what they can do in the system. For me it’s not so much of how these guys they get, more so is how does Collins and those guys coach these guys up to blend in with guys like Quincy. For me it’s more of a depth purpose next year. Does Gardner, does a guy like Chris Williamson, somebody like that step up to play with Quincy? As far as getting the players I think it’s there, and I think they’re doing a good job. You look at the class, it’s pretty evenly split right now defense to offense. You got six receivers committed, or five receivers committed, and you got six DBs committed.

Nick: Yeah. If I was a defensive recruit I’d watch that performance on Saturday and watch the performances of the defense’s entire year, and I’d say, that looks like fun. I want to do that.

Andrew: If you’re looking at defense it’s Alabama or Florida. Really. You look at those two defenses. Someone asked me this. They’re like, Alabama’s defensive line is so good. I’m like, but Florida’s isn’t chopped liver. Let’s just be honest. Florida’s not chopped liver. These teams don’t have no time to throw the ball either. It’s going to come. Chris Rumph, in my opinion, is one of, if not the best, defensive line recruiters, probably with Tosh Lupoi over at Alabama as far as being good recruiters on the defensive line.

Everyone always looks at classes right now. Don’t look at the class right now. Let me know in January or February what’s going on, because right now, Rumph’s always known as a finisher in the recruiting. Guys like Manuel, guys like Janarius Robinson, Brian Burns, Dexter Lawrence, they haven’t signed anywhere. Let Rumph have time when the season’s over with, get these guys on campus, and then let me know what happens.

Real quick, while we’re on this, before we get off the recruiting topic, just wanted to give a quick update on Lamical Perine. Did get an Alabama offer. I said it before, and I’ll say it again. He’ll be in the orange and blue in February. Just relax. He didn’t take the visit to Alabama yesterday, and don’t think that he was every planning on it. He may have said I may be planning on it, it’s all to get the media off his back. Just relax and watch 26 do his thing in Gainesville.

Nick: You taking a page out of Aaron Rogers’ book.

Andrew: That’s right.

Nick: R-E-L-A-X. Relax.

Andrew: Relax. The man will be in Gainesville. You heard it from me. As Nick will tell you, if anybody’s going to know what’s going on with 26 it’s going to be the man you’re just listening to.

Nick: Yup. Those Alabama boys.

Andrew: That’s right.

Nick: Real quick before we run out of here. Can we do something about this targeting penalty?

Andrew: Oh my God. It’s awful.

Nick: The rule, the NCAA will say, we’re thinking of player safety. The NCAA is thinking of we don’t want a player 20 years from now suing us when he has brain trauma. Football’s a physical game. People know what they’re signing up for when they play it. This rule, you can say it’s a good rule. Maybe it will keep players safe. Concussions have gone down since you put it in. Then teach the referees and the replay operators how to call it, because what Jordan Sherit did is how a coach would teach a first year kid playing football how to tackle. His head was up. He was looking at what he was hitting. That was a clean tackle.

Jordan Sherit, any defensive player, can’t yell at the guy they’re about to tackle and say, I’m coming at your chest. Don’t be a human and have a natural reaction to turtle up before you get hit, which would bring your head down six inches. Now the target, in a split second Jordan Sherit’s target, which was Johnny McCreary’s chest, ends up now being a little bit higher than that. It’s a bogus call. It’s a terrible call. These guys don’t know how to make the call correctly. Cody Riggs against Missouri, that’s targeting. What we saw the past two weeks, that’s not targeting.

Andrew: Yeah. My thing is this. I understand the penalty, and it’s a great rule. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great rule. These guys hitting guys in the head, it’s a great rule, but it’s inconsistent of the call in what they’re looking at. You look at the Alabama game last night. Someone hit me on Twitter, and they’re like, how is that not targeting? An Alabama defender is running down on special teams and just absolutely launches head first into the guy, hits him in the head. No targeting call. You look at the Auburn vs. Texas A&M game. I saw the tail end of it. He was going for a block, and the Auburn blocker ducks. When he ducks that’s head to head, and they eject him.

It’s like you have to understand what you’re calling. To say, did he mean intent? There’s only one person that knows if he was intending to do it, and that’s the kid that did it. He’s not going to admit that he intentionally hurt someone. Take out that any way that it can be intent or not. It’s either he hit head on or not. If he hit head on, he’s ejected. If not, he’s not. You have to make that rule, but I’m like you, it’s stupid. Cronkrite got the bad end of the deal Sherit got the bad end of the deal. Thank God it didn’t cost somebody a football game, because Mac would have probably been a little hot had Vandy scored after that penalty.

Nick: That might have been the best play of Jordan Sherit’s career, and now he’s going to miss an entire half of football because of it.

Andrew: An entire game. He misses the game, because it was late in the 2nd half. He didn’t have to sit out the 2nd half. He’s done for the game.

Nick: That’s terrible.

Andrew: It’s very terrible. I hate the rule. It’s one of those rules that like, you look at the replay, and you’re like, that’s not. Come back, a replay says, yes it was. Then hits that look like it was clear head to head they come back and not targeting. It’s like nobody knows what it is. To me there is no clear rule of that. I don’t know how you fix that rule, but something needs to be done in the NCAA after this year about it. Then it sucks, because you can’t even review it and have it turned over. It’s still there. It sucks.

Nick, before we get out of here we got to run down our three players. I don’t think either one of us did very hot this week. I don’t think so. You had Treon Harris.

Nick: I would say no.

Andrew: Yeah, and then my guy was Kelvin Taylor. He had a touchdown in the game on offense.

Nick: 2.8 yard per run average. A 9 yard long, I don’t think any offensive player, other than D Rob, should warrant getting a yes.

Andrew: Yeah. I think you have to give me a no for that. Your second guy was Jon Jon Bullard. I’m not going against that at all. 100%, the man is playing good football. You want to talk about when players go and say, should I go in the draft or not, someone should turn on the tape of Jon Bullard and give that to them, because this man made him so much money this year by coming back to school.

Nick: It’s unbelievable.

Andrew: He is just a fricking animal. I feel like I type Jon Bullard, Jon Bullard, 9,000 times, and I just need a control something to hit Jonathan Bullard, because that’s how dominant he is. I’ll give a yes on that. My second guy was Jalen Tabor. He had a sack in the game, but besides that did nothing. Nothing really at all. No balls really thrown his way. I’m going to give myself a loss for that one as well. Your third player was…

Nick: Antonio Callaway.

Andrew: I can’t really give you a win for that, buddy.

Nick: Really?

Andrew: I mean.

Nick: In the return game, 7 returns, punt returns, for 110 yards. A 16 average. I think I might sneak in there with the return game with him. Obviously on offense, I mentioned it before, really only three guys caught passes, excluding the Cece Jefferson fake play, other than Demarcus Robinson. One catch for 11 yards offensively, but I think special teams wise I can get a win, and that’s really what I put him down there for. I predicted the touchdown. He was a shoestring tackle or two away from actually getting that done. I would argue that I should get a win there.

Andrew: I’ll tell you what, how about we give you a half a point there, because he did okay on special teams. It doesn’t matter, because you’re going to win this thing. My last guy was D Rob, besides the fumble in my opinion he was very big in the game, so I’m giving myself a win. As the week goes I’ll give you a win, and you can take care of the win for this week. Sound good?

Nick: There it is.

Andrew: There it is. Nick, real quick a couple of things. Got basketball on Friday. We hope you guys enjoyed our coverage from last Thursday. Again, it’ll just be a normal week stuff. I hope to have some guys on the podcast. Just a quick little spoiler, I’m going to have on Lamical Perine and Mark Thompson on my podcast this week. That’s going to be something for you guys to listen to.

Nick: How about that? After talking about Perine today, getting him on the podcast this week. Maybe he’ll calm people down.

Andrew: Maybe so. There’s nothing, listening to dipshits that don’t know what they’re talking about in a situation is just uncalled for. That’s here for another day. Nick, tell everybody where they can find us, and then say your few magic words. I’m going to ruin it again, and then we’re getting out of here.

Nick: You know it. As always, @NickdelaTorreGC on Twitter. @AndrewSpiveyGC on Twitter. www.GatorCountry.com for all of your updates. Also, TheGatorCountry on Instagram. We’ve some great edits from some very talented guys that we’re working with. Exciting game. I will be up in Columbia, South Carolina this week for the game. Then back at home for FAU, home for Florida State, and then Andrew and I will be in Atlanta.

Andrew: Hotlanta. I will be there for Florida State, as it is guaranteed to be loaded with recruits. That game, so far the number I’ve been told is well over 100. It should be fantastic for that game with Florida State. Then Hotlanta is the best city in the world, no doubt about it. Go Braves. Maybe Florida will do well in that game.

Nick: We’ll see. I’m just excited to be there. Back in a big game. The goal was to restore the order. Order restored. If this isn’t order restored in the SEC, Florida and Alabama playing in the SEC championship, that’s what the SEC is. This is order restored in the West and East, but now I’m running on.

Andrew: Real quick. We almost went a whole podcast, and I feel bad.

Nick: I thought it. I thought it in my head, and then I got off on a tangent.

Andrew: We did not even think about the man. Austin Hardin with a big kick to win the game. We talked about the offense enough. I’ll be honest, the reason I noticed that was I went back to my desktop and noticed his tweets last night. He went on and rambled. If you called him out chances are you got a tweet from the Gators’ kicker last night. Much respect to Austin Hardin for going out and making that kick. It’d have been very easy for him to miss the kick with his confidence, but I speak for myself, I know a lot of people don’t give him much credit, but glad to see that kick go through for him for his confidence.

Nick: Yeah. To me, when I’m sitting in the press box I don’t really have an angle on the field goal posts. I can’t really tell if it went in or not. To me, the best way for me to know if a kick went in or not is I watch the kicker. They have a head on look. They can see where the ball’s going. They know how it felt when they kicked it. I’m watching Austin Hardin the entire time. He just let his emotion just come out. He had missed three, or it was only 3 of his last 9, dating back to last year against FSU. He hears what everyone’s talking about, and it’s proof that he hears what you’re saying going through his Twitter last night. To see how excited he was, how happy he was, how overjoyed he was to com through for himself, for his teammates with his second really career clutch kick was really cool to see, and it let me know that the field goal was good.

Andrew: It was good. If you talk trash about him, don’t get your feelings hurt. You talked it. Be a man. Take the pop back. Nick, go ahead. Say your magic words, and let’s get out of here.

Nick: I want to shout out the Basement in Orlando. That is the bar. I have a couple friends that work there. That is the bar that offered free beer until UCF won a football game. The fighting Golden Knights are 0-9. The Basement has given away 9,973 free beers, and they will continue giving away free beer until UCF wins a game, which looks like it might not be ever.

Andrew: Wow. Does this happen in the off season as well?

Nick: No, just during football season.

Andrew: I was going to say, it could be a long couple years. Could be a long couple of years for that to happen. That’s a crazy thing. My south Alabama Jaguars did come from behind, down 24 points to get a big Homecoming win over Idaho.

Nick: Idaho. That is a big win.

Andrew: Go Jags. South in your mouth.

Nick: I’m out of here. If you’re in Orlando next Saturday, the Basement. If you are in South Carolina this Saturday let me know. I will be there, and as always, you stay classy, Gator Country.

Andrew: That’s right. Butch, Mark, you know the deal. You still stuck. As always, go Braves, and congrats to Coach Mac on getting the East championship. Go Braves.

Andrew Spiveyandrewspiveyandrew.spivey1987@yahoo.comAuthorAndrew always knew he wanted to be involved with sports in some capacity. He began by coaching high school football for six years before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. While coaching, he was a part of two state semifinal teams in the state of Alabama. Given his past coaching experience, he figured covering recruiting would be a perfect fit. He began his career as an intern for Rivals.com, covering University of Florida football recruiting. After interning with Rivals for six months, he joined the Gator Country family as a recruiting analyst. Andrew enjoys spending his free time on the golf course and watching his beloved Atlanta Braves. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewSpiveyGC.GatorCountry.com